A WORLD CALLED SAFFRON -Chapter One
by femmefan1946
Summary: A decade after the BDM and Miranda, the crew is still struggling. But the first Mrs. Reynolds is getting bored with prosperity and decides a trip would be nice. And when I say Mature, please believe me. The sex is not the nasty part.


A WORLD CALLED SAFFRON  
Before A NEW CONTACT but after the BDM

The adobe wall was smooth where it pressed against her buttocks while the john thrust away steadily. She found herself moving towards orgasm, a rare occurrence in these circumstances, but enjoyed the ride into the waves , clenching around the john's dick and allowing herself to moan and gasp.  
The john redoubled his efforts fastening his mouth over her nipple and suckling like a starving baby. Her full orgasm hit and she choked out a cry, grabbing his hair, pulling him off her breast and kissing his hot lips.  
The john looked surprised by a whore's kiss, then his eyes glazed as, still engorged, his dick slid out of her and he collapsed unconscious at her feet.  
She took a few moments to recover from the bonemelting rush of orgasm before leaning down and rifling his pockets.  
In scrip and coin he had nearly 200 square plus a cash card, some saleable ID, and an unlocked com. She pulled the spotter from the com and dropped in on the unconscious john, sneering at his still stiff cock.  
'Goodnight. Sweetie. It was good for me, too bad about you.'  
Pulling her logo tee down over her ample bosom, and readjusting her panties under the uniform skirt, she indulged herself in a little frottage of her still excited clit.  
The alley ran behind the busy tavern where she had hooked him, and she left by the busier street. All an observer would have seen was a tired waitress on her way home.  
She found a bus stop just as a bus arrived, paying with a paper ticket, and rode for about a klick, before descending at a busy square. There she slipped into a shopping mall.  
In the washroom, she changed her short skirt and tight tee for a pale yellow dress and removed her black wig, exposing her own pale red hair. She washed off the waitress' heavy makeup and added a little light brown mascara and a gloss of the ever useful 'lipstick'  
She gave a long stretch to her tiny frame, watching how her useful bosom filled out the dress. No straight man ever really saw her face with the girls in evidence.  
She walked the length of the mall to a taxi stand. The bicycle rickshaw had a curtained compartment for privacy, and after giving the driver an address, she took advantage of it to continue pleasuring herself with the little vibe she kept in her purse. She had two more orgasms by the time the rickshaw arrived and was flushed and more relaxed than she had been in weeks.  
The muscular driver gave her a cocky grin that told her he knew how she had passed the travel time. Keeping her eyes down, she breathed deeply, confirming that he would remember her boobs and perhaps her hair colour but little else about his sexy customer.  
She stepped through the unlocked gate of the walled compound and waited for the rickshaw to leave the quiet neighbourhood. Locking the gate behind her, she crossed the street and walked two doors down to a different locked gate.  
Home at last.

The next morning she tossed the card and com into the basket of incidental goodies her staff had picked up overnight.  
The coms would go to the pawnshop later in the day where less affluent crooks would pay deeply discounted coin for them. The cards would go out with sharps who would empty accounts as soon as possible. The cash went into her safe.  
From her office com she watched her staff, few of whom had ever met her, greet her soldiers and give each his or her percentage of the night's earnings.  
She tuned in to the oral reports of the past week's happenings.  
Sweet Sue, a tiny blonde madam, was accompanied by two brutal faced mercs, bristling with guns and knives. As a legal business, the string of brothels Sue ran made their deposits to bank accounts, but the side deals were in real money and Sue brought that in herself Sweet Sue was again looking to open a sly house and was giving her business plan to the bored desk clerk.  
Of more interest were the truckers and the captains of boats and spaceships. While luxury goods and some necessities were becoming more consistently available, there was still higher demand than supply on these Border worlds, and an even smaller supply out on the Rim.  
About 20 captains were in the office, checking the electronic bulletin boards for jobs that fit their vehicles. The shippers were far from her home office, in a building near the oceanside and spaceport docks, but she had a little flyabout that would take her there in less than 15 minutes if it ever became necessary. Over the past five years, that had happened exactly once. That problem was efficiently disposed of...out the airlock between suns.  
After having a few useful organs harvested for transplant. Under deep anaesthetic of course. Efficiency need not be cruel.  
A courier was picking up flower arrangements for delivery to the homes of various police and government officials. The courier's truck was fitted with comfortable seats for the guards protecting the message cards on each bouquet, which held appropriate wage packets of scrip.  
She changed her viewers to see the less savoury 'offices' of her staffers who worked with smugglers and petty thieves.  
At the tavern where Fanty and Mingo met their bandit buddies, she stopped and stared... she recognized that idiotic hat.  
And coming back from the bar, bearing a tray of beers... well, if it wasn't her one time husband... Mal Reynolds.

He looked pretty good, given the decade that had passed since they last met. Saffron, she was calling herself then, and she remembered how he had lectured what he thought was a shy, scared virgin on self-confidence and making her way in the world.  
She remembered kissing him and thinking for a moment that it was too bad she didn't have time to fuck him stupid. It wouldn't have taken too long, he wasn't that bright to begin with. But she had a deadline... and it was the big merc in the idiotic hat that has messed up that deal too.  
The Amazon joined them at the table.  
No sign of that gānrǎo mǔgǒu Companion. Well, she wouldn't fit in this scruffy tavern.  
The rest of the crew she didn't remember too well. Oh well, there were quite a few husbands she couldn't remember too well either.  
He was a little taller than she remembered and a lot broader. It looked as if he had been lifting weights and his biceps strained the sleeves of his red shirt. He still kept his pants up with suspenders, not relying on the tight fit.  
He was laughing with the merc and the Amazon, looking a lot less grim than he used to be.  
Fanty and Mingo arrived, looking tough and grinning like a pair of Cheshire cats. Saffron opened the mic built into the table.  
'Been a while, boys,' her husband said.  
'Mal,'  
'We haven't had anything much that fits your particular skill set lately.'  
'Don know why. We'll take on pretty much any jobs that don involve slavin.'  
'Personnel procurement, Mal'  
'Slavin. And we don't want to be involved.'  
'Fanty and I heard you were on the other side of a slave... personnel procurement... operation a bit back. Helpin out the Alliance.'  
'There was Alliance involved, but we were helpin out the slaves. And yer Fanty. Don mess me about.'  
'Cost one of our employers a lot of money, Mal'  
'Then he shouldn't be in the slave business. Do we have anythin to talk about? Do you have work for us?'  
'Hear you have a doctor on board, Mal'  
'Nothin new. He's been with us for goin' on ten year. He hooked up with the Book Memorial Flyin Doctors and does reg'lar clinics around the Rim.'  
'Very respectable, Mal.'  
'And wantin to stay that way. We got kids on board these days. Don need no trouble. We're reliable, we get the job done. We bring the goods and get paid. Simple.'  
'Where does your doctor go next, Mal?'  
'No secret. His schedule is on the cortex. Here, I'll put it on your com.'  
'So Beaumonde to Greenleaf to Jiangyin. '  
'Then back here, prolly, to pick up some back ordered medicines and equipment. There's enough time between Greenleaf and Jiangyin for a side trip. Doc's got several days of surgical clinics set up. Knee replacements, nose jobs, scar removals, nothin emergency.'  
Saffron found this new-found respectablity amusing. The crew had been living hand to mouth, as appreciative of payment in foodstuffs and cider as they were of cashy money. And now they were ferrying around a Flying Doctor. Great cover for less respectable enterprises. And if the doctor were less respectable than he appeared...  
Saffron switched the meeting to 'record' and searched for the Flying Doctors schedules. She found Dr. Simon Tam, contracted to the Derrial Book Memorial Hospital, flying with Serenity out of Persephone, captain, Malcolm Reynolds. There was a David Chen listed with Book Memorial as Tam's nurse.  
The other crew were listed on the ship register as Zoe Washburne, first mate; Jayne Cobb, supercargo; Kaywinnet Lee Frye, engineer; River Tam, pilot.  
Mal's mention of children puzzled Saffron. There had been a waifish teenager aboard on her first run in with Reynolds, but she would be in her twenties by now. Perhaps the pilot and the doctor were parents?  
No mention of the Companion. But she would be a passenger and not on the crew list.  
And nothing about the pilot she knew, the jokey guy with a sharp eye for bullshit. Wasn't he the Amazon's husband? She probably got tired of his jokes and tossed him out the airlock. Very direct woman; odd that she'd kept his name, though. Maybe her original name was ridiculous.  
On a whim, she ran marriage records for Washburne and Zoe. No, she'd been Zoe Alleyne. She ran Zoe Alleyne, pulling up her birth registration, shipborn, distinguished service record, albeit with the losing Independents, then a short gap, and then, paydirt.  
An outstanding warrant for Zoe Alleyne for terrorist activity.  
The Amazon was a Dust Devil! Not a huge reward, not enough to put a bounty hunter on her trail, but good enough to give a little pressure if needed. A simple, legal name change in a Rim planet registry office had made her invisible.  
Saffron wondered if Reynolds knew of his first mate's past. Didn't matter. She was open to being bound by law at any time.  
She and the crew she ran with would be Saffron's bitch any time she wanted them.


End file.
